Ideas for a Music UI mod.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Whoops, I misunderstood your intent entirely! I read it as using individual track ratings and then extending that to something Pandora-esk like what you mentioned in your reply. My reading comprehension skills seem to be deteriorating; I blame it on the C++ code I have had to write lately

I don't know java or studio, so I would stink as a dev for Sage, but I would be willing to help beta test and provide feedback and crash logs as things progress if you need another tester.

I'll find out just how hard this is going to be soon. My brother is the one with the java skills so it depends on how much he helps me with this. I have to get my coding skills back up to par for my engineering degree so sage will give me something to practice on. Not sure how much I would use java in engineering though...

Originally Posted by joe123

Am I the only one who thinks having Lyrics (scrolling when too big to fit) would be a great idea to have when listening to a song?

Originally Posted by PGPfan

Nope, your definately not alone thinking this! I'd love to see lyrics implemented as an optional screensaver/visualization.

-PGPfan

We'll have to see about implementing this. It will depend on how the lyrics are associated with each song, or if they are stored in the tag.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I have to get my coding skills back up to par for my engineering degree so sage will give me something to practice on. Not sure how much I would use java in engineering though...

Depends on the degree/school of course, but from what I've seen it's the CS departments that get all weak in the knees and tingly for Java and Python. When I was working on my BS in EE the only programming I did was in C/C++, embedded assembly, and VHDL/Verilog.

That being said, if you have a good basic understanding of programming and how compilers work, the language/api is almost irrelevant. Once you know the concepts the rest is just syntax

[joe123]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

We'll have to see about implementing this. It will depend on how the lyrics are associated with each song, or if they are stored in the tag.

Take the easy road first and if the tag has lyrics (stored in the tag), have an option to show it or not while the music plays.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Depends on the degree/school of course, but from what I've seen it's the CS departments that get all weak in the knees and tingly for Java and Python. When I was working on my BS in EE the only programming I did was in C/C++, embedded assembly, and VHDL/Verilog.

That being said, if you have a good basic understanding of programming and how compilers work, the language/api is almost irrelevant. Once you know the concepts the rest is just syntax

Thanks. When I started my degree it was mainly C/C++ but that was a few years ago. I haven't been to school in a while. Life gets in the way some times.

Originally Posted by joe123

Take the easy road first and if the tag has lyrics (stored in the tag), have an option to show it or not while the music plays.

Sounds good to me.

[ptzink]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

List views are always good too.

Now that you mention it, I really do like XBMC list view (for Artists especially). I think it is superior to Sage's because it a.) Displays more lines of Artists due not displaying the album art and count on the same line b.) Is slightly cleaner because of this lack of information c.) You still get the album art eye candy (and album count information if you want) when you highlight the artist. Also, as an added bonus, you could potentially save some system resources by not loading the album art until after the artist is highlighted (vs. loading thumbnails for all artist albums on a given screen).
Here is a thought I have. What if you combined a list view with a coverflowesque view. People seem to love coverflow views for the eye candy, but my big beef with it is that it is not a practical way to browse a large music collection. See the attached mockup image I created. You would navigate up/down through the artist list on the left. As you highlight an artist, their albums appear in coverflow view (actually more like the task switcher in Windows 7) to the right. You can then navigate to the right to highlight the album and use the up/down arrows again to toggle through the albums for just that artist. It would probably make more sense if the art was in more of a "stack" than a coverflow, since you will have to navigate with the up/down arrows. The mockup is very 'minimal' partly because I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it and partly because that is the aesthetic I prefer.
I have some more thoughts that I haven't had the chance to mockup yet (like a tri-pane view). Once I find time, I will post them.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by ptzink

Now that you mention it, I really do like XBMC list view (for Artists especially). I think it is superior to Sage's because it a.) Displays more lines of Artists due not displaying the album art and count on the same line b.) Is slightly cleaner because of this lack of information c.) You still get the album art eye candy (and album count information if you want) when you highlight the artist. Also, as an added bonus, you could potentially save some system resources by not loading the album art until after the artist is highlighted (vs. loading thumbnails for all artist albums on a given screen).
Here is a thought I have. What if you combined a list view with a coverflowesque view. People seem to love coverflow views for the eye candy, but my big beef with it is that it is not a practical way to browse a large music collection. See the attached mockup image I created. You would navigate up/down through the artist list on the left. As you highlight an artist, their albums appear in coverflow view (actually more like the task switcher in Windows 7) to the right. You can then navigate to the right to highlight the album and use the up/down arrows again to toggle through the albums for just that artist. It would probably make more sense if the art was in more of a "stack" than a coverflow, since you will have to navigate with the up/down arrows. The mockup is very 'minimal' partly because I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it and partly because that is the aesthetic I prefer.
I have some more thoughts that I haven't had the chance to mockup yet (like a tri-pane view). Once I find time, I will post them.

Nice idea. I think that sounds great. Simple to use as well.

[JonTom]

I've seen lots of good ideas here but one request that I would really like is: the ability to sort my albums by import date. The album I usually want to listen to is the newest one, and various alphabetical lists do nothing to help me find it.

[Skirge01]

Another thing that I just though of would be have a way to always show the current playlist. Like I said previously, playlist management is what I think is most lacking, so that's where I'm kind of focused. (I do like what many others have suggested, though.) But, what I think is annoying is that the screens are so separated, they make it difficult to multi-task. For example, the tree-type view would be great for adding things to your playlist, but it would be very beneficial to actually see the playlist you're adding to. This could also allow you to insert the music you want at any point in the existing (or, ideally, any other) playlist.

[pjpjpjpj]

Looking through the screenshots that people have posted of other interfaces/software UIs, it finally struck me what bothers me about Sage 7 - true of both the music and the UI in general. It's the fact that everything is split down the middle, giving you two halves of screen, and the fact that text reads left-to-right. In other words, when you have long titles - of a song, an artist, a DVD/BD, a recording, etc. - they are always getting cut off, because you are only working in half a screen or less. We have these nice, wide screens... why are we only using part of it?

That's why the "wall" views look so nice - you get so many more things to show up when you use the entire screen. I'm tired of looking at the Sage 7 music interface, on any view other than "playlist" (artist, song, album, etc.) and only seeing album art on half of the screen, and then cut-off artist/song/album titles on the other half. Give me a whole screen of album art, and then info about the focused item across the bottom of the top!

I really like the WMC screenshot.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by JonTom

I've seen lots of good ideas here but one request that I would really like is: the ability to sort my albums by import date. The album I usually want to listen to is the newest one, and various alphabetical lists do nothing to help me find it.

That shouldn't be too hard to add. I think that would be handy the same way that smm shows recently added movies.

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Another thing that I just though of would be have a way to always show the current playlist. Like I said previously, playlist management is what I think is most lacking, so that's where I'm kind of focused. (I do like what many others have suggested, though.) But, what I think is annoying is that the screens are so separated, they make it difficult to multi-task. For example, the tree-type view would be great for adding things to your playlist, but it would be very beneficial to actually see the playlist you're adding to. This could also allow you to insert the music you want at any point in the existing (or, ideally, any other) playlist.

Playlist management isn't something I'm too concerned with but it shouldn't be too hard to add more features either. Maybe add a "current playlist" shortcut key, or add to current playlist?

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Looking through the screenshots that people have posted of other interfaces/software UIs, it finally struck me what bothers me about Sage 7 - true of both the music and the UI in general. It's the fact that everything is split down the middle, giving you two halves of screen, and the fact that text reads left-to-right. In other words, when you have long titles - of a song, an artist, a DVD/BD, a recording, etc. - they are always getting cut off, because you are only working in half a screen or less. We have these nice, wide screens... why are we only using part of it?

That's why the "wall" views look so nice - you get so many more things to show up when you use the entire screen. I'm tired of looking at the Sage 7 music interface, on any view other than "playlist" (artist, song, album, etc.) and only seeing album art on half of the screen, and then cut-off artist/song/album titles on the other half. Give me a whole screen of album art, and then info about the focused item across the bottom of the top!

I really like the WMC screenshot.

That would be the main reason I started this project. I don't want half the screen taken up with what I deem to be useless info, although there are some areas where I like that. One being when you are looking at the specific album and the song list is on the left side. I think I may have two main views. A "wall" view and a list view. Both functional and easy to navigate. I'm going to post my specific plans up to this point later.

[panteragstk]

Ok. I think I've decided how I'd like things to look as well as navigate.

The first screen you would be greeted with could be a wall view like this.



The other option would be a list view which I think a combination of these two would look pretty cool.


I would use the left side for the actual list and the right would be more similar to this (thanks for the mock up).

In theory with the list view instead of selecting the artist you would be able to push the right arrow key and browse through the albums and pushing info would bring up a track list.

If you chose to use the wall view then pushing select on an artist would bring up a screen similar to this to go along with the wall view.



Honestly I like the current view that shows what tracks are on a specific album so I won't change that unless someone can find something better.

As for playback screens the wall view shows a song playing so that could stay the same. Alternate views would be like this screen. or a visualization screen like this.



Thoughts? I'll try to create better mock ups when I get the time.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I would use the left side for the actual list and the right would be more similar to this (thanks for the mock up).

As long as you realize flipping the images 3d like that on the right won't work for extender users as it can't 3d render.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

As long as you realize flipping the images 3d like that on the right won't work for extender users as it can't 3d render.

Extenders? We don't need no stinking extenders! Hopefully he won't feel the need to cater to that "extender crowd" like some others. J/K... I know plenty of people use them. I just wish there was an easy way for you devs to convert a beautiful 3D sequence to something an extender can handle. Ideally, it'd be nice to have an extender that could do the 3D rendering so that PC clients and extenders had the same capability, but I don't know if that'll ever happen.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I would use the left side for the actual list and the right would be more similar to this (thanks for the mock up).

Holy schnikes, I just had a flashback to electro-magnetics and planewaves!!!! /puke

Other than that it one tidbit I think the ideas are solid. I especially dig the playing now screen. Fanart for currently playing is a good idea

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

As long as you realize flipping the images 3d like that on the right won't work for extender users as it can't 3d render.

Boo hiss! No 3d rendering engine? Who wants to port Ogre

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

As long as you realize flipping the images 3d like that on the right won't work for extender users as it can't 3d render.

I keep forgetting about the extenders. I'll think of something. Maybe selecting the artist will got to the album screen the same as the wall album view.

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Holy schnikes, I just had a flashback to electro-magnetics and planewaves!!!! /puke

Other than that it one tidbit I think the ideas are solid. I especially dig the playing now screen. Fanart for currently playing is a good idea



Boo hiss! No 3d rendering engine? Who wants to port Ogre

It won't be exactly the same as the mock up, but I see your point. What would you do?

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I keep forgetting about the extenders. I'll think of something. Maybe selecting the artist will got to the album screen the same as the wall album view.

I was refering to the way the albums where slanted and stacked on the right of the list.

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

It won't be exactly the same as the mock up, but I see your point. What would you do?

Here's a (bad, there's a reason I don't do graphic design) idea, but I worked on it so I'm gonna post it!
Pretend that the text has changed to match the album covers.
This is flat (well minus the bevels and the drop shadows) so it might render on an extender too

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Here's a (bad, there's a reason I don't do graphic design) idea, but I worked on it so I'm gonna post it!
Pretend that the text has changed to match the album covers.
This is flat (well minus the bevels and the drop shadows) so it might render on an extender too

I see no 3d rendering there so it will render fine.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I was refering to the way the albums where slanted and stacked on the right of the list.

Man have I got a lot to learn. OK, so 3d is bad for extenders. Got it.

Originally Posted by Spectrum

Here's a (bad, there's a reason I don't do graphic design) idea, but I worked on it so I'm gonna post it!
Pretend that the text has changed to match the album covers.
This is flat (well minus the bevels and the drop shadows) so it might render on an extender too

Looks nice. I just want you guys to know I really appreciate your feedback. I'm not the most creative person that's why I look for ideas on the web and modify what I don't like about them. As for that mock up being bad, I like it. I think the way we would get a nice wow factor is making flat designs that have good transitions. Now I just get to figure out how to make that happen.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

Now I just get to figure out how to make that happen.

See you in 6 months to a year